


Balance

by itsyu



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, FrostIron - Freeform, M/M, Quiet Loki, Talkative Tony, Tony Stark Has A Heart, under 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 21:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7191614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsyu/pseuds/itsyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People always said Tony talks too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance

Tony speaks too much.

 

He always has, and people berate him and shame him and mock him for it, but he doesn't stop. Even friends of decades sometimes will make the eventual joke, _“Tony, wow, too much"_ , he is always _too much_. But he can't slow down, this is how he thinks and feels, in barrages, and though _this_ is something he never says, maybe someday someone will understand that what they feel when they talk to him is what is like to be him all the time, inside his head, too many feelings, too many words, too much knowledge and it _never stops_.

 

Sometimes people are surprised that he managed to create JARVIS, but they don't understand it was never a manner of want, but need, the only way he could deal with the solitude he both needed and hated. Talking to JARVIS is the closest he can get to talking to himself without crossing a line into insanity.

 

Loki, on the other hand, doesn't speak enough.

 

Well, it is not that is isn't _enough_ \- what he does say is always laden with meaning, compressing enough feeling in a sentence that would have taken Tony a few minutes, at least. He is like an artisan with his words, each well-crafted and placed and chosen to mean precisely something he wants them to signify. So every conversation they have has content enough to last for days in reflection.

 

But he doesn't mind the silence, and he can go days without words. He has tendency to close in on himself and disappear into the confines of his own brain, and though Tony can sympathize, on one hand, it drives him insane when he isn't the one doing it to other people.

 

The exception is when Loki is angry, truly angry, he loses himself and though his words are still ever tailored, they are so to cause pain and nothing else, and so he slips and so does his tongue, and he says things he doesn’t mean to say, doesn't mean others to know - though he always _means_ what he says, even if only at that moment. Sometimes Tony wants to draw out that side of him, just so he can stop the silence, so he can shout and be shouted at and be enveloped in a crushing wave of bad choices and bad thoughts and half meant insults and _no silence_. But though Tony never claimed he wasn't self destructive, even he isn't quite that much, so he quenches that desire.

 

One day, when they are together in Tony's workshop, working quietly side by side, Tony can't take it anymore and starts talking to fill out the silence. It is that stream of consciousness that demands no response, that made Pepper remind him a conversation should be between at least two parties, because she doesn't understand it _isn't_ a conversation, it is him, offering himself and keeping himself from overloading in one beat, because if at least if he says what he is thinking, the limit is how fast he can talk, not his brain, and it actually slows himself down, allows him to focus more.

 

At first he is sure Loki will either reprimand or mock him, because though he loves Tony, he still has a mean edge that has only dulled slightly with time. But when he looks over, the other man smiles at him, fond in a way Tony rarely sees.

 

So he continues, sounding out the calculations, talking about ideas he had, the material he is using, a copy the competition tried to make of one of his patents; topics change with neck break velocity and are dropped before they are complete, and much of it doesn't make that much sense for anyone other than Tony, but Loki only smiles, and by the time they decide to go to bed Tony feels pleasurably spent, like he had just had sex, and calm, like the pressure inside his head has been relieved, and he sleeps better than he has in a long time, with a long arm draped around his middle.

 

The next day Tony can't help but feel self-conscious about what happened, about how he deluged on the other man, so he tries to keep to himself. It is a few minutes, however, before Loki looks at him knowingly and says he is too quiet. There is unspoken permission and so Tony starts describing what he is doing before switching to how he has been thinking about altering the paintjob on the suit to how they should someday go get sushi in Japan because they can and so on.

 

After a few hours, as the need for a break approaches, Loki stands and heads over to Tony’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder. Tony's jaws snap shut immediately, almost painfully and Loki places a kiss on his temple.

 

"My mind," he says, in that low but clear voice he usually uses when they are alone, "can be very loud and not at all pleasant. I very much prefer being in yours."

 

Tony can’t help but smile and twist into a kiss. Sometimes, and only sometimes, words aren’t necessary.


End file.
